


tired

by Xine



Series: blood & ice cream [2]
Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional revelations, Hospitalization, M/M, Mid-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6667174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xine/pseuds/Xine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all the people who thought him to be a paranoid madman, irreversibly conditioned by the sometimes harsh streets of metropolitan London, Danny had been the only one in this little village to make him believe he wasn’t going insane.</p><p>(Wherein Nicholas worries over a hospitalized Danny and arduously ponders over what his work partner means to him.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	tired

There are fewer things that scare Nicholas more than the sight of bright scarlet seeping through the impeccable white of Danny’s shirt, but one that does is the dull feeling of his partner’s face against the palm of his hand, the dust and grime taking away any sensation of life between their skin.

A few stray tears stream down Danny’s cheek as he purses his lips so hard he might bite through them, droplets cutting through the smears of dirt on his face and seeping between Nicholas’ dirtied fingers. Nicholas can hear the rattling inside Danny’s lungs as he breathes and the sound terrifies him.

The more he speaks — repeating the mantra of _Just hold on, Danny_ and _Stay with me_ and _Everything’s going to be just fine_ — the more he feels the soot settling in the back of his throat, creeping into the corners of his lungs. Danny doesn’t look at him, looks in every direction but his, and Nicholas doesn’t know what to make of his eyes' avoidance, of his deafening speechlessness.

It’s becoming harder to say anything above the volume of a whisper and by the time he hears sirens in the distance, the only thing his efforts are awarded for is a sharp pain in his chest. He presses on, though, all up to the point of Danny’s tired form being heaved onto a stretcher after what feels like hours of agonised waiting.

“They’re taking ‘im to Buford Abbey,” Doris mumbles to him as he stares after the EMTs carrying Danny away, “Ain’t any surgeons in town ‘cept for Dr. Hatcher. They’ll fix ‘im up proper.” She gives him a sorrowful look, brows furrowed and upturned under a mop of mussed, tangled hair, but he sees only blurs of this in the corner of his eye, doesn't turn the slightest bit in her direction. He can't will himself to move at all.

The others begin to shuffle past him — both of the Andes, the Turners, Walker, Saxon, the latter of whom appearing the most unscathed, thank goodness — but some footsteps stop just outside his peripherals. He wants to say the sensation of Sergeant Fisher’s hand landing on his shoulder is a welcoming gesture as he watches an oxygen mask being put on Danny's face, but all it manages to do is make him feel ill.

Nicholas lets him keep his hand there, though, if only for the reason that he doesn’t have the energy to push the sergeant away. He allows himself to be nudged forward, out of the disheveled remains of the police station and towards an ambulance waiting for the rest of them, the other van speeding off for the motorway.

He goes through the motions with the gentle-handed paramedic checking his vitals, her voice steadily blending into the background within just a few moments, and he’s unsure if the white noise in his ears is due to simple shock or the sheer pressure of the sea mine going off not a few steps in front of him. He answers her questions with little thought, letting the words roll off his tongue as he has done so many times before, responding without really listening.

The EMT presses a gloved finger into his neck, counting his heart rate with the aid of a wristwatch. A numbness fills his limbs while he sits on the floor of the ambulance's boot, his eyes going unfocused and blurry, feeling himself enter autopilot. Right now seems the best time to let himself space out, especially if it means he can switch off for just three minutes.

A torch shined into his eyes returns no ill results, nor do any motor exercises entertain damage sustained in the blast. She holds an otoscope into his left ear, the metal of her necklace glinting in the setting sun as she inquires about any pain he may feel in his ear canal. Nicholas can’t feel any pain, can’t really feel anything at all, so he just tells her he’s fine and leaves it at that. 

Wainwright’s abrasive voice filters through the buzzing sound filling his ears, sounding the most shaken up out of all of them — though he would be last to admit it — as he unsteadily holds conversation with Cartwright. Cartwright is calmer, yet when Nicholas briefly shifts his gaze over to the two of them, the younger Andy stands hunched over, hugging himself with tear-stained cheeks not unlike Danny’s.

Saxon presses the side of his snout against Andy’s leg, his lead being loosely held by Walker, who politely averts his eyes from possibly the only moment of weakness the Andes have really displayed to any of them.

“Okay, Sergeant Angel,” the paramedic starts, the countryside accent in her voice just barely present. Did he tell her his name? “Aside from some scratches and a few bruises, your condition appears to be fine, all things considered.”

Caught off-guard, he nods weakly. “Right.”

“I’m going to get you cleaned and patched up, take care of that scrape on your arm. Afterward, you’ll be fit to ‘ead home.” She reaches a hand behind him to grab what he presumes are cotton swabs and disinfectant, but he finds himself grabbing her arm to stop her without really thinking about what he’s doing before he’s already done it.

“I’m...” he begins with his throat dry and his voice gravelly, not having his words prepared as she stares at him, brows knotted in concern. He tries again, looking her dead in the eyes when he says, “Please, take me to hospital.”

Her head tilts and her expression grows worried. “Sir, are you feelin’ alright? If you’re experiencin’ any pain, please, tell me whe—”

“I’m fine.” He doesn’t particularly enjoy cutting her off nor is he pleased with the way his fingers involuntarily tighten around her arm, but he presses on. “Please, after you attend to my colleagues, take me with you. My partner is the one who got shot.”

Her green eyes scan his face, and what she’s searching for he doesn’t know, but after a brief pause she straightens her back and replies, “Okay, sir.” 

He lets go of her arm, apologising quietly as he returns his trembling hand to his lap. Taking a step backward, the EMT points to the back of the van and instructs, “Wait back there. Shouldn’t be too long.”

“Thank you.” His words are genuine, but he can’t seem to rid himself of the knot stuck inside his throat, and all it manages to do is weaken his voice down to murmurs.

The woman walks away and toward the cluster of police officers gathered by the bulletin board, still standing amongst the stone rubble and dented metal filing cabinets. Nicholas watches them all, taking in the hollowed expressions on their muddied faces, before climbing into the back of the ambulance van and ignoring the hitches in his own breathing.

  


* * *

  


Hospitals have never sat well with Nicholas, whether it was for investigating a suspect of a crime or for visiting a fellow officer from the station while they were in recovery. He had been to all of them in London at least once, each time in uniform, even when going in for injuries of his own. Always a cautious child, he never got himself seriously hurt growing up, never needed to check in to hospital, as he was not the type to seek dangerous situations.

The life as a police officer, however, requires much more risk.

Sitting in a cramped, angular chair inside a waiting room reminds him of this fact more than he would like, staring a hole into the blank wall across from him. The only other members of the station, aside from Doris, to have attended hospital with him were Fisher and the more caustic Turner sibling. Like himself and Doris, Fisher rode with them to get a proper look over from a health professional and then sit and wait, the three of them sharing an unspoken fear of not being there if something went wrong during the procedure.

Turner, however, was there after having sustained a fractured collarbone from the work table landing on top of him. As soon as he was finished with getting x-rays done and sliding his arm into a sling, he was gone, taking a cab back home to Sandford. Fisher followed his example soon after his waiting had become just too long, excusing himself so that he could personally ensure his family that he was alright.

Doris had been the one to stay with him for a couple of hours after their colleagues’ departure, but had left in search of a cornerstore for supplies to clean up her hair, as well as stopping to pick something up to eat on her way back. She had offered to buy him a meal, but he declined, not having the necessary appetite.

Now he waits on his lonesome, his only company being a woman and a young child settled a few seats away from him, the pair just barely sitting within his eye line.

He has only spoken up to them once, asking for the time, as the room lacked a clock and his own wristwatch had been broken in the blast, glass shattered and hands stuck on 6:37 PM. Her voice sounded tired as she responded, “It’s nearly eleven o’clock, officer,” the child next to her nodding off and resting their head on her arm. If his internal clock is to be trusted, that was over an hour ago.

Looking over at them now, he sees his own exhaustion reflected in them, each having fallen asleep in their respective chairs. Had he any energy of his own he might have asked them their names and why they were here, unable to shake off his need to help out the locals, even if he has a tendency to come off a tad surly sometimes. At the moment, though, he hardly has the power to keep his body from slouching forward and tumbling himself onto the floor.

Taking a deep breath, Nicholas leans back in his seat, stretching his linked hands high above his head and popping a few joints in his back in the process. He bends his neck to the right and it too gives out a handful of soundly pops.

With the adrenaline largely drained from his system, the pain of the day’s events returns, coming back as slowly as it had earlier whilst he was occupied with paperwork. His throat is still sore from running, breathing in dust, and doing his best to bide his own tears. His arm aches where Amanda's bullet had grazed him, having taken a small chunk of skin with it. The EMT had done a proficient job bandaging it, a pad of square cotton having been taped over the wound.

Nicholas places his elbows to rest against his legs once more, wringing his hands together and absentmindedly rubbing the scar in the inside of his left hand with his thumb. In spite of his fatigue, his thoughts are going a mile a minute and he’s finding it hard to calm them down.

The logical part of his mind keeps telling him to feel fortunate that nearly all of them managed to make it out with minimal injuries — apart from one of the Turners, and of course, Danny.

But that is what the more emotional part of his mind is constantly lingering on, the part of his brain that he’s sure many think is dead and shriveled, if the begrudging respect he earns through his work is anything to go by. Danny is the first person in his life to take a bullet for him, and the most intrusive thought that he just can’t kick away no matter how hard he tries is that Danny will also be the first partner he’s lost, not due to resignation, but due to their death.

Had the blunderbuss gone off without someone jumping into its line of fire, both Nicholas and Doris would have taken the bulk of the spread, but the damage done would have been much less severe than Danny’s. If he wasn’t feeling so torn up and terrified at the prospect of losing someone he cares for, Nicholas would mentally reprimand his partner for being so foolish as to risk his life so easily.

How they managed to overlook Tom Weaver’s absence amidst the episodes that had transpired that day is beyond him. Right under their noses he sat for a good half hour, likely waiting for the most opportune moment to catch the lot of them with their guards down. And he had done just that, successfully so, but most grandly to his own detriment.

Nicholas would have preferred to avoid the casualty, though he would be lying if he said he hadn’t been wanting to tear the older man apart with his bare hands for filling Danny’s abdomen with buckshot. He wouldn’t have done it, not so far gone as to throw his values away for a personal grudge, but he certainly entertained the vicious thought before getting a face full of mine-blasted powder.

He lets out an exasperated sigh, mindful of its loudness so as to not disturb the mother and child pair whilst he scrubs a palm across his face, rubbing an eye and willing himself to bring balance back to his thoughts. His shirt sleeves, having been trimmed with surgeon’s scissors by the paramedic, rest oddly and unevenly against his skin, and his big toe keeps poking at a newfound hole in his right shoe. Everything feels so spectacularly crooked.

Other than his face, his hands, and patches of his arms cleaned for wound treatment, the dust and dirt and grime from the explosion still coat his body. He’s hardly left the waiting room since his arrival, and when he made a run for the toilet after no longer being able to tolerate dirty hands, he had avoided the mirror as much as possible. He doesn’t really want to know what he looks like right now.

He’s glad that he hadn’t had to explain his current appearance to anyone he encountered in the building in the past four — five? — hours, all due to the story of a police station in some small country village having been completely destroyed in an explosion being hard news to suppress from the public. The vast majority of people seemed to have heard the news before he even made it to Buford Abbey Hospital.

If Danny’s rushed arrival hadn’t alerted the rest of the country of Sandford’s unsuspected “excitement” — a term he uses loosely, as this is all much less exciting than it is mortifying — then Simon Skinner, who is very likely still in surgery somewhere in the same hospital, was the true signaling flare to the outside world.

He hadn’t anticipated being in the same place as Skinner just a mere few hours after his arrest.

“Nic’las.”

The voice makes him start in spite of its softness, pulling him from his reverie. He looks up to meet eyes with Doris, her lengthy hair brushed and neatly tied back in her typically low bun. Much like himself, she looks sleep-addled, shoulders hung heavily and dark circles settled round her eyes. Some dust still clings to her hairline.

‘Hello, Doris,” he says, sitting up and straightening his posture. “You startled me.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” she replies, crouching down onto the carpeted floor before continuing, “Thought you ‘eard me walk in.” Nicholas internally scoffs at himself, immediately taking notice in Doris’ automatic motion to sit in a way that requires her to look up at her superior officer. Work hardly escapes him, doesn't it?

 _It’s always about the job,_ Janine echoes in his head. _That’s all you care about._

“No, sorry, I’m not...” he wipes his palms onto his thighs, digging the heels into the muscle. “I’m not all here at the moment.”

Doris frowns, bracing a hand on the arm of Nicholas’ chair. “Maybe it’s time for you to ‘ead home,” she offers, and he hears the hesitance in her words, unsure if she’s crossing a line with her suggestion. Maybe if he wasn’t so cold all the time...

He opens his mouth to object, unable to bear the idea of leaving without knowing Danny’s condition, but she stops him gently with, “Sir, it’s already past midnight, and ya look like you’re ‘bout to topple over.” She pauses briefly, gazing at him with an unexpected expression of understanding on her features before adding, “Danny ain’t goin’ nowhere. These are good doctors. They’ll make certain ‘e turns out alright.”

Perhaps he isn’t as stone-faced as he believes he is, Doris reading him so effortlessly, as if his concerns were printed across his forehead in plain typeface. He exhales, slow and a bit shaky, resigning to her advice and shifting to stand. She joins him, mentioning something about a telephone booth right outside the building, but Nicholas isn’t paying her the attention she deserves, if he’s honest.

He lets her give his shoulder a squeeze before they head out of the waiting room, and as they walk down the dimmed halls, Nicholas tries his hardest not to think of blood-stained police uniforms.

  


* * *

  


“See ya tomorrow, sir,” Doris calls through the car window, waving with a few flaps of her fingers before slinking into the backseat. Nicholas raises a hand in farewell to the retreating taxi cab, its brake lights illuminating the wet stone road with a vibrant red as it disappears round the street corner. The scent of rain lingers in the air, fresh and damp as he takes a deep breath, turning to face the front door.

He settles a couple of his bags onto one of the steps and cradles the Japanese peace lily close to his chest, wedging his head between its plethora of spade-shaped leaves while he searches for the doormat in the dim light. Nudging the ground with his shoe a few times, he bumps into the cheap carpet and bends down to lift it, skimming his fingers across the cool concrete beneath until his hand finds metal.

Not the best place to hide a spare key, but he guesses in a place like Sandford a police officer wouldn’t be worried of a break-in — at least, not until yesterday, when all of the town’s ugly secrets burst from its seams and spread across the country like an oil spill in a matter of hours.

The key doesn’t go into the lock correctly the first time, but he successfully unlocks the door after his second attempt. With a gentle push, the door swings open and Nicholas is greeted by darkness, his own shadow painted across the floor in skewed proportions as the faint light of the streetlamp shines at his back. He huffs through his nose at the sight, shoulders relaxing and eyelids going heavy.

“So, what’re you goin’ to do about your room?” he remembers Danny asking him suddenly, the obtrusive sound of helicopter blades whipping in the background as they echoed farther and farther away from them.

Nicholas was distracted by the sight of Walker talking to the press — the man mumbling in his country slur into the microphone pointed at his face with Saxon sitting obediently at his feet — but turned to look at his partner, a bit perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Danny began, squinting at the sun in his eyes, a shock blanket the colour of seafoam wrapped over his shoulders. He pauses, twisting his features in that loose, casual way he does when being nonchalant before meeting Nicholas’ gaze. “Can’t really stay at the Swan with Joyce and Bernard in lockup, can you?”

For all the foresight he is oft to have, Nicholas had honestly not thought that far, content with just sitting next to his partner and taking a breather from the type of police work that only really belongs in action films. He nodded. “Yeah, I suppose I can’t. The cottage won’t be finished for a few more weeks, so I may have to sleep at the station for the time being.”

“You could stay at my place,” Danny offered, moving his attention to pick at a loose thread on his blanket before adding, “if ya want.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

The smile that broke across Danny’s face was very much like he had expected such a response, a light chuckle emanating from his throat. He gave Nicholas another glance, dark brown eyes crinkled in amusement as he looped the thread around one of his fingertips. “Aw, never if it’s you.”

Nicholas hummed, bringing his own blanket closer round his arms. “If you’ll have me, sure.”

White teeth peeked out from behind Danny’s lips at that, grin like that of a child being allowed to have his best mate over for their first sleepover. He leaned sideways toward Nicholas, playfully bumping their shoulders together as he said, “We could sit down wit’ a beer and finally get you to watch Lethal Weapon tonight.”

Nicholas found his own lips curling into a wide smile at the idea, tasting the lager on his tongue already whilst returning the gesture in his own rigid, if a bit restrained, manner. "Yeah, I'd like that."

When he flips the light switch on, a standing lamp wedged into a nearby corner awakens, bathing the small lounge area in a warm, yellowed light. The large television catches Nicholas’ eye and he gazes upon the entertainment set forlornly, wondering when the next time he’ll sit down in front of it to watch more buddy cop movies will be — or, god forbid, if he ever will again.

Inhaling sharply and tightening his grip around the plant — its roots in a cheap plastic bag for the time being — in his arms, he scolds himself silently, before forcing his body to relax and letting out his stress in one long, slow exhale. He carefully sets the peace lily on top of an old cardboard box, stepping back outside to grab the rest of his things.

Trying to manoeuver a garment bag, a satchel, and a roller case with the cuddly monkey partially contained inside of it without running into the numerous boxes strewn across the floor is difficult, but Nicholas manages to squeeze by it all and avoids knocking anything over whilst making his way to the closet. The doors slide open smoothly, widening the entryway to three walls of DVD cases firmly packed together on every shelf available.

He can’t imagine how much Danny spends on his movie budget alone. He probably prefers not to know.

So as to not worsen the clutter in the lounge, Nicholas opts to leave his things in here until he can find a better place for them. The limbs of the cuddly monkey bounce loosely as he sets the luggage down, making the toy squeak at the movement, zippers restraining the bottom half of its body into the tight space of the bag’s insides. Looking at the small pile of the only material items he owns, he feels fortunate that he got his hands on them again so soon.

Getting into the hotel in its current circumstances was easier than it should have been, Nicholas being able to duck under two rows of police tape and jogging up to the Castle Suite as if he himself was the proprietor of the inn. He had sent Fisher to block it off and the Andes to do a full sweep of the building while he was securing the NWA’s arrests at the station, so with it being this late at night the hotel had been entirely abandoned.

He had told the three of them that he would have to return for his belongings at some point later if he was going to be able to brush his teeth and sleep in his own pyjamas that night. However, the fact that everything he owns still awaited him in the hotel had been pushed to the back of his mind after sitting down to plow through piles of paperwork, thinking that he could just gather everything once he could no longer keep a pen steady and had to call it a day.

With the sea mine obliterating the station, though, he hadn’t the time to worry about anything other than his partner’s health and safety.

The suite had been left almost completely untouched by either the owners or the station’s two detectives, broken glass of the framed castle painting scattered across the bed, shattered remains of the lily’s pot spread out among piles of speckled soil, the plush monkey toy lying dejectedly on the carpeted floor amidst the violent mess. Tiptoeing over it all, he had found his clothing and baggage undisturbed inside the drawers of the wardrobe, everything sitting right where he’d left them.

Nicholas imagines — most grimly so — that if Lurch had been successful in his attempt to kill him, the room would have been meticulously cleaned and rearranged to look like it had been leisurely lived in without any remaining indication that it was the scene of a murder. Not a single speck of dirt or shard of glass would be found, the painting inconspicuously removed from its place above the bed.

He shudders at the image of his body being carefully undressed and positioned on the tile of the bathroom, his limbs tangled in the opaque, vinyl shower curtain, laid there to be found by his fellow police officers the next morning.

The thought of Danny seeing his corpse, however, makes his blood run absolutely cold, picturing a world in which his partner lives in total ignorance of the town’s hideous underbelly and earnestly believes that murder just doesn’t happen in the Village of the Year.

Standing in the modest but cosy flat now, Nicholas wonders if he’s fully ruined the once comfortable life Danny drifted through each day, tearing down the smoke screen to show the ugliness of the community’s most respected members, his own kin being one of them.

He thinks that if he admitted such a thing to his partner — and knowing himself as well as he does, he wouldn’t be able to mince words at all — Danny would scoff in disbelief and immediately reject the notion, perhaps even make a good-natured jibe at it, but Nicholas determines that he would hardly feel reassured.

Sure, Danny got to replicate much of the same carnage as seen in the rows upon rows of action films he loves so dearly, getting to brandish a shotgun with the evidence tag still attached to it and using it in a gun fight inside town square, leaping through the air and shooting into a pub with a pistol in each hand, taking wheel of a police car and chasing after criminals whilst firing bullet after bullet through the gaping doorway. _Proper action and shit,_ he called it.

But were the consequences of it all worth it? Would Danny be able to cope, knowing he has one parent long gone in a grave and another rotting in a prison cell? Would Danny be able to trust an authority figure again, not without itching paranoia making him second guess their every word? Would Danny be able to sit down and watch Point Break for the nth time, to look at Johnny Utah take aim at Bodhi and not imagine himself doing the same to his father?

Nicholas has never gotten close to someone who wears their heart so plainly on their sleeve as he has with Danny, someone who is so honest and raw with their emotions that Nicholas cannot help but feel akin to a marble statue, expression forever moulded in that same irritated frown. If he had destroyed the easygoing path Danny once walked, he would merely have to look at his friend’s face and see it laid bare.

Pressing the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, Nicholas chides at himself aloud. “Switch off, you sod.”

He keeps his hands there until his blackened vision swirls kaleidoscopically with sharp whites, breathing in the smell of sixty year-old minol still sitting on his skin. When he pulls them away and opens his tired eyes, his vision is all but blurred, coloured clouds and his head begins to ache miserably.

He stares at the walls surrounding him, reading the names of films he doesn’t recognise, and all he feels is a sense of being completely lost inside of a home that doesn’t belong to him.

  


* * *

  


The feeling of hot water raining down onto his scalp is the most relieving sensation he’s had in the past seven hours and he allows himself to simply bask in the shower head’s heated embrace, standing stock still in the centre of the bathtub. The water pooling at his feet darkens into a thick grey as it is pulled into the drain, small clumps of dirt gathering at his toes. His left arm glistens under the water, cellophane wrapped over the bandaged area to keep it dry.

He listens to the faint hiss of the pipes among the arrhythmic sounds of droplets hitting porcelain, shutting down the persistent train of thought plaguing his brain with the nonsensical noise. It works, letting him close his eyes, focus on the water streaming from his forehead, and pay mind to nothing else. Just like the white noise of shock.

The pressure of the water is much nicer than the one at the hotel, and if he were being honest, the shower is much cleaner than he expected from a person like Danny. Aside from the piles of boxes littered around the lounge, Nicholas recalls the rest of the flat being much the same, noticing piles of mail scattered over the dining table and stacks of used yet not dirtied glasses on the kitchen counters when he stepped in to throw away an emptied can of beer.

Perhaps Danny’s version of messiness is all clutter and no grime.

Running a hand across his face to brush water out of his eyes, Nicholas searches around for shampoo along the wire shower caddy, slipping his fingers between a few bottles of varying emptiness and pulling them back to read the respective label. A transparent bottle halfway full of baby blue gel is what he’s looking for and he picks it up with a slightly slippery grip. He’s seen the brand before, nothing too pricey, but has never bothered to sample it for himself. Flipping it right side up and flicking the top open, Nicholas brings it to his nose.

Immediately his senses are filled with the scent of his best friend, an association so strong he would think Danny soaked in it on a daily basis. There’s a hint of lavender in the aroma — giving it the slight musk so closely tied with masculinity — but the soap also has a sweetness that he cannot place, close to but not quite like sandalwood.

It’s a scent that he would catch at random points throughout the day with Danny, often unexpected but not unwelcome as it would drift to him from Danny’s seat on the passenger’s side as they each nursed on a Cornetto, or whilst they were changing in the locker room and Danny would lean his head towards Nicholas’ space as he wrestled his jeans on, or when the chilly evening air would briskly carry it Nicholas’ way as they walked side by side to the pub.

In all sincerity, the contents of this little bottle combined with the scent that is distinctively Danny and no one else had become a source of comfort these past few days. For all the people who thought him to be a paranoid madman, irreversibly conditioned by the sometimes harsh streets of metropolitan London, Danny had been the only one in this little village to make him believe he wasn’t going insane.

He hadn’t noticed it until the night before, when he felt a hand grasp onto his shoulder at the castle and turned around to come face to face with the one person he could trust, feeling his stomach sink and his heart stop at the revelation of _Danny could be the one to kill me, right now._

Clutching onto Danny’s jacket lapels with all the desperation in his fingers he could muster and staring into wide chestnut eyes in the red glow of the Jetta’s tail lights, he realised just how much the man meant to him, understood the sheer volume of how emotionally dependent he had become on his work partner and the debilitating fear that if they didn’t make things right, they would be mercilessly torn apart.

His hands start to shake as he squeezes a small dollop onto the palm of his hand, hastily clicking the top closed and placing the bottle back onto the shelving. _You’re sleep deprived, Nicholas. You’ve been awake for twenty hours, haven’t eaten in eighteen, and your body simply can’t handle it anymore._

Frustrated but unwilling to lose himself in his emotions for the third time that day, Nicholas lathers the shampoo between his hands before running it through close-cut hair, scrubbing with blunt nails in an effort to remove debris tucked away among the strands.

Letting the suds settle atop his head, he sifts through the caddy once more to get a hold of whatever body wash he can find on its shelves. The single product available would be identical to the shampoo — same color, same brand, same scent — if it weren’t for the exfoliation beads dispersed in the translucent soap and the small note of “Body and Face Wash” at the bottom of the label.

Danny really does soak in it.

He dunks his head under the waterfall for a few seconds, passively letting the shampoo wash away before he squeezes the body wash onto his fingers. Observing the stall, there doesn’t appear to be anything to aid in his washing — no sponges, no loofahs, no washcloths — so he supposes he’ll just have to use his hands. Nicholas has seen people do this in communal showers before, coating their bodies in soap with just their palms, but the few times he’d tried it for himself, he never felt very clean afterward.

As he massages the lather into his chest and rubs away the dirt caught along his collarbone, he gives the tub and shower combo a look over and takes in his surroundings with a proper, attentive eye.

The caddy has hooks meant for stringed loofahs, but are left unused. Between them is a dish for a bar of soap that at one point had been occupied, if the light green residue stuck on the wires is anything to go by, but he supposes the bar was traded for liquid that is much easier to use.

On each shelf of the standing shower caddy, there rest at least two bottles that have been completely emptied, leaning haphazardly against the tiled walls with their peeling labels. Almost all of them are the same matching pairs of shampoo and body wash, sporting identical navy blue caps, but the only one that isn’t is an upside down bottle of conditioner, sitting among them like a sore thumb. Hardly any of the product is left inside the rounded container, and upon closer inspection isn’t even the same brand as the everything surrounding it.

He can’t imagine leaving his own bathroom like this, not even when he was living on his own. Scraping his upper arms with soapy fingertips, he reasons he got his obsession for neatness from his mother, who couldn’t stand beds being left unmade or dishes not properly cleaned, dried, and stacked in the cabinets.

Janine was very much the same — folding her clothes into perfect squares, buying the best hygiene products available, using everything from cuticle moisturiser to eyelash primers — as she, too, had a need to keep everything in her life at its absolute best, but Danny is messier, less concerned with what brands of he uses, and only keeps the bare necessities to get through each day.

With Janine things were simple and they made sense. Their home was always tidy; nothing was ever out of order. They woke up at the same time every morning, sat down for dinner at the same time every evening, and headed to bed at the same time every night.

She had fit into Nicholas’ life perfectly, moulding into his habits and daily routines like water, filling in all the blank pieces of what he thought domestic life was supposed to be. The two of them fell into an easy rhythm that hardly went unchanged, as neither of them were fans of spontaneity or surprises, and any event that would impede upon such a rhythm was carefully planned out beforehand.

Conversation was extensive, but hardly pertained to anything that wasn’t work or grocery shopping or what best-selling book was worth giving a read. Janine didn’t have a hobby that she felt the necessity to share with him — he doesn’t even think she had any hobbies aside from reading — and his sole passion lied in the service. The times they fought were rare, but were consistently over the same thing that made it all fall apart in the end. _Why can't you just switch off?_

But Danny is the sheer opposite of Janine, someone who takes much of everyday life in stride, one who is not worried over how others see him, an adult who does not feel the need to appeal to some unspoken standard of what being grown up is about. Danny is passionate, constantly carrying the desire to share what he loves with anyone who will listen, having memorised not the jurisdiction of the law but rather libraries of dialogue and scene direction.

Danny should be everything that gets under Nicholas’ skin, and at first he absolutely was — particularly with his hypocritical disregard for the law once attempting to get behind the wheel whilst intoxicated and then going unpunished for his crime — but within a couple of weeks, his talkative nature and his casual outlook on life has become nothing short of endearing.

Danny may be lazy in many ways, perhaps ignorant, but he’s likeable. He is amicable, sincere, conscientious of the feelings of others, attentive to small detail. He is a quick learner with a strong moral compass, who is sometimes soft-spoken and sad and lonely, yet someone who also has a terribly sweet smile that is simply infectious and brings a little twinge in Nicholas' chest—

He hisses as a poignant pain pierces through his body. He pulls his hand away from his back and cranes his neck around to fruitlessly look at source of the pulsing ache torturing his ribs. With care he puts pressure on the spot again and is awarded with the same unpleasant sensation. _A bruise from Lurch, most likely._

With a sigh he resumes, avoiding the tender area and hoping that it will clear up swiftly. The soap has become oily in color and dwindled in volume in his hands whilst he mindlessly washed himself, letting his mind drift away in a manner that it so often does.

He reapplies body wash to his palms once more, rubbing them together in small circles after returning the bottle to the rack. His mind fights with him as he works down his legs, Nicholas trying to stay focused on the task at hand yet his thoughts so fiercely scrambling inside his skull to figure out just what Danny means to him.

The easy answer is “a lot” and while its simplicity doesn’t make it inaccurate, there’s an itch in his brain that tells him that that phrase isn’t enough, isn’t sufficient at all. It fulfills the question of how much Danny means to him, but not the harder and more elusive question of what does Danny mean to him.

For someone so remarkably different from himself, Danny has managed to become the closest friend he has ever had; no one from early childhood to adolescence to his years at the academy or in the Metropolitan Service had taken the time to sit down with him and quietly just... listen to him talk about himself.

Janine once asked the question of “What do you do as a police officer, Nicholas?”

Danny asked the question of “What made you want to be a policeman-officer?”

Vocabulary fumble aside, his newest work partner was the first to wonder why he chose the path of a police officer, rather than what his examination results were, what his qualifications are, or how much experience he carries.

Maybe Janine didn’t ask not because she didn’t care enough to, but more because she knew how reserved he is, assuming he wouldn’t deem it necessary to share his past on the whim of her curiosity.

For all the years they spent living in that humble flat and breathing the same air and sharing the same bed, she never did ask, did she? He doesn't know who to blame for that.

Nicholas watches the last of the bubbles wash off of his feet and swirl down into the drain whilst simultaneously twisting the valve clockwise, the pipes screeching as the water flow halts to a stop. He cards a hand through his hair, pressing against his scalp and squeezing the wetness from it.

The towel he grabs after pushing the curtain aside is softer than he expected, pulling it toward him and admiring its gentle, pastel green colour before bringing the cloth to his face to pat dry. It still smells clean, carrying the scent of a detergent possibly labeled with “Ocean Mist” or something of the sort. 

_Danny must have just done laundry,_ he muses.

Wrapping it around his body, he cringes as he gets out of the stall, his feet aching as he steps around for the first time since he got into the shower. The mirror hanging on the adjacent wall is fogged over, silvery and blurry, hardly reflective at all. Beneath it sits the counter, a can of shaving cream and a crumpled tube of toothpaste resting by the sink.

Mindful of his sore feet, Nicholas makes his way to the counter, glancing at the digital clock wedged in the corner as it shines 1:42 AM back at him in red. Frowning, he swipes a hand across the mirror’s surface and finally gazes back at his own reflection.

Staring at his reflection, he lets out a long exhale from his nose and tilts his head, feeling the last bits of energy he had left depart his body. He feels worse than he looks, heavy lidded eyes and two plasters placed next to one another along his cheek being the only indicators of the hell of the past twenty-four hours. He doesn’t know whether to be thankful or riddled with guilt for it.

  


* * *

  


He hadn’t meant to fall asleep sitting up for the second time that day.

For as active and constantly moving as his brain is under regular circumstances, the overwhelming turnout of the last few days has led him to the point of burnout, his thoughts no longer reaching logical, linear passages but instead getting lost in jumbled mazes closer to the patterns found in the roots of his peace lily.

The service relocated to the leisure centre by the library on the other side of town that morning, being one of the few vacant spaces available to them now that the actual station was all but a mound of stone and rubble. They managed to cram inside one of the aerobics studios a table large enough to seat twelve or so people — provided they were fine with bumping elbows occasionally — as well as a couple of filing cabinets recovered from the explosion. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.

Rebuilding and reconstructing the paperwork they had lost the day prior was a strain on Nicholas’ already overworked brain, however, and he found it difficult to not make mistakes as he scribbled endlessly with a blue biro. With the rest of the staff — save for Danny — seated and hunched over their own respective piles of documents, the workload had been substantially alleviated, but even with his small stack he struggled to focus.

When he started keeping his eyes closed for more than a couple seconds — though, in his defence, not entirely by choice — he was reprimanded by Wainwright, startled by a capped pen poking him in the right arm. “Christ, Nick, you can’t even stay awake for two minutes without passin’ out,” Andy scolded, coming off less smug over Nicholas’ ineptitude as he might have been only a couple days ago and more perturbed by the ever-efficient sergeant’s sudden lack of productivity.

Nicholas had raised his head from the partially completed form in front of him and was met by stares all around the table, his peers paused in their work, their faces lined with concern. The lot of them seemed well-rested, or as well as they could be with what they dealt with yesterday, and if he was the only one who couldn’t keep up with the job, something was clearly very wrong with him.

“You should prob’ly ‘ead home and call it a day,” he heard Doris say to his left, followed by a few scattered murmurs of agreement.

He wanted to object as soon as she finished her suggestion, but the heaviness in his head and his inability to support its weight told him that he would merely look foolish if he tried to argue. He nodded weakly, submitting to the idea that he shouldn’t be working if he isn’t at his best.

Fisher had offered to give him a lift back to Danny’s flat, but he lied through a tired smile, telling him he “could do with a walk” before bidding them all farewell. 

Admittedly, he did not rest well last night. He spent a solid fifteen minutes searching each closet for a second set of bedsheets in his friend’s house only to discover that Danny really only used one set, which were secured over the vacant, double-sized bed. He dug around the rest of the flat, eventually finding a fleece blanket tucked behind the couch, caught between a box and the bookcase.

He had resigned to just using the small blanket and a brown throw pillow as he curled up on the sofa, tucking his knees in and folding his arm under the pillow, but he waited a full hour in the foetal position to fall asleep, all to no avail. Tossing and turning to find a more comfortable position did little to stop his mind from running a mile a minute, unable to switch off and block out the possibility of his attending a funeral in a few days time.

After a while he gave in to the same childish, forgotten means of comfort from his youth — reminded of faded memories of waking from nightmares, cradling a Kermit the Frog toy with tears rolling down his face, his mother hushing him back to sleep — and blindly headed for the DVD closet, the cuddly monkey letting out a squeak as it was pulled out of the luggage.

He felt absurd clutching onto a stuffed toy and holding it against his chest as if he’d die without it there, but it helped. The feeling of holding and being held back was something he hadn’t realized he missed so dearly.

He woke up again only three hours later, the sun peering into the window left uncovered by the viridian curtains, the day beckoning him to begin anew.

And now he awakens once more, blinking his bleary eyes open as they protest against the brightness of the hospital room. He keeps them closed. The midday sun is too much for him at the moment.

There’s an ache in his neck that shoots from his nape to his shoulder blades, likely from bending his neck uncomfortably while he was asleep. He sits forward, pulling his head off of its resting place on the wall.

“Was wonderin’ when you’d wake up,” a voice says to him, distant in his mind’s clouded state.

Nicholas rubs the knot in his neck, digging his fingers into the muscle and wincing at the pain. His mouth tastes bitter and chalky as he asks, “How long was I asleep?”

“Hm, ‘bout two hours.”

For as dead tired as he was earlier, his accidental nap has made him feel worse; granted, the thinly padded waiting chair isn’t an optimal place to rest. While he is well aware that further sleep deprivation would be the least beneficial, he is hardly enthusiastic about napping in the middle of the day. Being asleep now would certainly throw off his circadian—

Nicholas’ eyes shoot open, his sleep-addled brain finally connecting the voice to a name, to a face that gazes back at him when looks up. He rises from his seat too quickly, giving himself vertigo and having his sight go silver. When he stumbles, Danny gently calls out, “Hey, hey... careful, now. Don’t need you in a ‘ospital bed, too.”

It takes a couple of seconds for his vision to clear, and once it has Nicholas strides quickly to Danny’s bedside, gripping on the plastic rails until his fingertips go white. Nicholas hesitates only slightly before he asks, “How are you feeling?”

Danny gives him a familiar eye-crinkling grin, looking just as he had before the sea mine had gone off, his hair brushed neatly from his face and all the grime cleaned from his skin. A long, thin scab has formed over the scratch he had gotten in the blast, stretching from his left temple to the corner of his lips.

He seemed absolutely exhausted when he was still asleep, but now that he’s awake, his teeth are beaming, his skin is glowing, and his cheeks are flushed pink. If he didn’t know about the bullet wounds, Nicholas would think Danny was perfectly healthy.

He must have woken up right after Nicholas nodded off.

Danny rests a hand gingerly over his belly, holding Nicholas’ gaze when he replies, “A little sore. Doc told me it coulda been a lot worse, but the shot missed all my internal organs.” He glimpses down his hospital gown clad body briefly only to meet Nicholas’ eyes again. “I feel really good. You alright, Nicholas?”

Nicholas gulps and nods. “I’m fine.” His voice is scratchy and he doesn’t like the way his words wavered.

“Y’ sure? Look like you’re ‘bout to topple over,” Danny says, hardly convinced.

He wants to reply with “Doris said the same thing,” but he can hardly get his lips to untwist from the frown keeping them shut. The terror of losing Danny — losing the first, real friend he’s ever had, the person who was willing risk dying to keep him safe — is still deep in his marrow.

Staring right at him, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, standing close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of his body — yet it feels as if he isn’t really here, as if his mind is fooling him into believing Danny’s lying there in that small room with him. The idea would be far from outlandish in his current mental state.

He knows it’s real, though. The lump in his throat is too painful for him to be experiencing this in a dream, yet Nicholas can’t shake off the uneasiness in his gut and he struggles to understand why.

Danny tilts his head at him, scanning his eyes for something — for what, Nicholas doesn’t know — before letting out a chuckle. With an amused upturn of his lips, Danny lifts a hand up to Nicholas’ face, taking his index finger and planting it firmly between his partner’s furrowed brows. “You’re gonna get wrinkles if ya keep on scowlin’ like that, Nicholas.”

There’s that twinge in his chest again — the one he gets when Danny makes a reference he doesn’t recognize, when Danny makes a joke that has no business being funny and yet it is, when Danny smiles with all the unbridled joy a person can possibly muster — and the first thought to cross his mind is _I love you, Danny._

Nicholas’ sight goes blurry, but even through the tears he can still see the way Danny’s face falls. 

He gets it.

The answer to what Danny means to him — he gets it.

A laugh bubbles from his breast and the smile pulling on his lips is painfully wide and he’s sure he looks like a confusing, ugly mess, but he’s found the words and understands the terror and Danny is here and he is _alive._

Nicholas is pulled forward, warm hands braced on his shoulder blades as he ducks his head to bury his face in Danny’s chest. He can feel the way Danny’s body shakes when he joins him in chuckling, shushing him softly as he traces ellipses on Nicholas’ back. “I ain’t ever thought I’d see you cry, Nicholas.”

He wraps his wiry arms round Danny’s neck, choking out a laugh that’s caught between a gasp and a sob, silently thanking every last one of his lucky stars that Danny is still here and that he isn’t going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly hadn't expected to find the energy and inspiration to write another piece on the Cornetto Trilogy immediately after my previous one, but here we are! I apologize if the language is off, as I am but a filthy American writing in a British voice. Please let me know if anything needs adjusting.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always greatly appreciated, be it kudos or comments! ♡


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